BRUSSELS: Pro-EU business leaders are worried that the campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, which will launch on October 12, is falling behind its rivals in the Out campaign.
“There is a concern that the Out campaigners appear to have got themselves together quickly,” said Terry Scuoler, chief executive of EEF, the UK manufacturers’ organisation. “If you look at the headlines they are getting their message out.”
The Out campaign, which is based in offices in Vauxhall, London, has already formed its executive team and will base its campaigning on a 1,000-page research document: “Change or Go”.
Meanwhile, the group that hopes to be the formal campaign for Britain to remain in the EU is preparing for its launch in a week’s time. One person involved in its establishment rebutted Mr Scuoler’s criticism.
“The other side has been out there a lot talking about where they are, far more than us, because they have the issue of being divided, whereas we are not,” they said.
Senior figures in the fledgling organisation include Will Straw, a former Labour parliamentary candidate, Lord Andrew Cooper, a former adviser to David Cameron, Greg Nugent, who mobilised volunteers for the 2012 London Olympics, and Ryan Coetzee, a South African who was in charge of the ultimately disastrous Liberal Democrat election campaign.
Mr Straw, son of former home secretary Jack Straw, has been appointed executive director. Mr Coetzee will be its strategy director while Lucy Thomas, formerly campaign director of Business for New Europe, will be deputy director.
